Annual Report 2010 - AdP

We would also refer to how responsibility for the execution of downstream investments, fundamental to managing the urban water
cycle, is attributed to the municipal authorities. Through to 2013, this involves investment in excess of € 2.2 billion and designed to
ensure the water supply and wastewater sanitation levels of service standards are met. Nevertheless, the Águas de Portugal Group
may also intervene in this field dependent on reaching agreement with the respective municipal authorities.
In the sequence of protocols for the development and implementation of downstream water supply and wastewater sanitation
systems, and in striving to attain the objectives incorporated into PEAASAR II, AdP SGPS has continued with contacts with a vast
range of municipalities for discussion as to the feasibility of establishing partnerships for the organisation of municipal systems. Without
overlooking the flexibility inherent to the management model, progress in talks has proven conditioned in certain regions of Portugal
by the trends in the service financing model. Furthermore, and under current circumstances, despite the economies generated by an
integrated model with scale, the costs attributed to the resulting services still prove greater than the tariffs deemed socially acceptable.
Following the contacts already made, and subsequent to appreciation by the Board of Directors, two project partnerships with Noroeste
and Mondego e Lis were submitted for the approval of the regulatory authorities at the end of November 2010.
The partnership proposal with the Noroeste municipal authorities involves a set of 14 municipalities and an area corresponding to
around 3% of the national territory and a resident population in the region of 560,000 inhabitants, corresponding to around 5.5% of
the population of mainland Portugal. The forecast initial investment plan totals around € 138.6 million euros and involves significant
expansion to water service coverage.
The partnership proposal with the municipal authorities of Mondego e Lis gathers together a group of 13 municipalities with a total
area corresponding to around 3.4% of Portugal and a resident population of around 440,000 inhabitants, representing around 4.4% of
the mainland total. The forecast initial investment plan amounts to € 125.3 million and results in an important boost to the extent of
wastewater sanitation coverage. In parallel, the parties engaged in discussion of merging the companies Águas do Mondego, S.A. and
Simlis, S.A., with a proposal also submitted to the regulatory authorities at the end of November 2010.
Additionally, in 2010, the management entities for two partnerships launched their operational activities and in the case of the
partnership with Aveiro region municipalities this has integrated the Ovar municipality since the beginning of January 2011.
The company Simdouro - Saneamento do Grande Porto, S.A. was also founded and exclusively attributed the operation and
management of the Greater Oporto multi-municipal sanitation system for the collection, recovery and disposal of effluents, in
accordance with the stipulations of Decree Law no. 260/2000, of 17 October.